When James Roszko murdered four young RCMP officers on a farm in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, in the spring of 2005, law enforcement authorities quickly linked the shootings to violence associated with marijuana grow-ops, organized crime and the need for harsher penalties for pot -cultivation.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Roszko, a man with a long history of violence, had no connection to organized crime and worked alone or possibly with a neighbour growing about 280 marijuana plants. In fact, the officers killed by Roszko had gone to his farm to back up a bailiff sent to repossess a vehicle.
Although most of the early claims about the connection between marijuana cultivation and the officers’ deaths were either incorrect or exaggerated, the Mayerthorpe murders remained indelibly linked, in the media and the public...
April Lindgren is a professor at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism and director of the Ryerson Journalism Research Centre. She has more than 20 years of experience as a journalist, editorialist, columnist and television commentator.
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